Facebook suffers lobbying exodus

Three contract lobby shops have stopped lobbying for Facebook after content providers who were also clients of the firms raised "conflict" concerns in recent weeks, POLITICO has learned.

The move signals that the gloves are coming off in the ongoing lobbying fight between content providers and Internet companies. Facebook's lobbying spending increased about 285 percent from $351,000 in 2010 to $1.35 million in 2011.

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"They are doing everything they can to ensure that the tech industry and Facebook in particular doesn't have any talent to go up to the Hill," one tech lobbyist said of the content providers.

Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock, the Glover Park Group and TeleMedia Policy Group have all terminated their lobbying contracts with Facebook, according to sources familiar with the lobbying terminations.

GPG, Fierce Isakowitz and Facebook all declined to comment for this story. TeleMedia Policy Corp. did not respond to a request for comment.

Elmendorf Ryan remains as the sole outside lobbying firm Facebook has on retainer, according to Senate filings. Facebook is feeling the heat in part because some other technology companies, like Twitter and Reddit, haven't yet built out their Washington operations, according to the tech lobbyist.

It is not unusual for such moves to occur as policy issues make their way through Congress. From the Internet companies' perspective, it also shows that content providers haven't learned from the SOPA/PIPA battle that the influence game has changed in favor of the tech sector.

"What happened with SOPA and PIPA had less to do with D.C. lobbyists and much more to do with a public reaction to the scope of the bill and how it was being promoted in Washington," said Markham Erickson, executive director of the NetCoalition, whose members include Google, Amazon, and PayPal, among others. "If content's lesson from that is to hire more lobbyists and ensure that they have exclusive relationships with lobbyists, then it's clear that they have not learned that lesson because these issues are not going to be solved through an inside-the-Beltway solution."

But while Internet companies are playing an outside-inside game, it doesn't mean they are giving up on K Street.

"I don't think there's any lack of smart lobbyists or lawyers that tech companies can hire," Erickson said. "These are compelling companies and in fact from a public perception standpoint they are much more highly regarded than any of the content industries."

Other lobby shops without conflicts are already trying to represent Facebook as it ramps up its downtown presence, according to several sources.

"Fortunately for them, they are just in the process of ramping up," one Republican consultant said. "They’re having some people taken off the table, but the prospect of working for Facebook if you are a lobbyist, it's like working for Microsoft in the '90s or Google in the 2000s."

Glover Park Group, which only started representing Facebook earlier this month, represents several companies bruised in the brutal SOPA/PIPA fight, including Walt Disney Co., Viacom and Warner Music Group, among others. Joe Lockhart, co-founder of GPG, left the firm less than a year ago to join Facebook.

Fierce Isakowitz began working for Facebook in February 2011 and billed the company $180,000 last year for lobbying work, according to federal filings. Fierce Isakowitz represents CTIA-The Wireless Association and Time Warner.

TeleMedia Policy's Justin Lilley represents the National Cable Telecommunications Association, Sony Music Entertainment and the Recording Industry of America.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 1:52 p.m. on February 24, 2012.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified Justin Lilley.

Readers' Comments (3)

Unclear how tech lobbyist Markham Erickson can say with a straight face that lobbyists aren't important. In any event, I'm not sure how "compelling" these tech companies truly are if the DC firms in question dropped Facebook like they were just another Eduardo Saverin.

Unclear how tech lobbyist Markham Erickson can say with a straight face that lobbyists aren't important. In any event, I'm not sure how "compelling" these tech companies truly are if the DC firms in question dropped Facebook like they were just another Eduardo Saverin.

Never understood why any intelligent person would think that they MUST have Facebook, a commercial enterprise and in my opinion a scam ideology, as part of their lives. Anyone who cannot live or function without Facebook is actually an extremely weak individual.

How did anyone ever rise to greatness in America or elsewhere in the world before things like Facebook? The whole concept is absurd.

It epitomizes the Dumbed Down Sheeple syndrome that Democrats who control our education system have plagued America with in the last few decades.